I don’t know who you are.
Or whether you’re a man or a woman.
I may never see you or cry with you or get drunk with you.
But I love you.
I hope that you escape this place.
I hope that the world turns and that things get better, and that one day people have roses again...
"Our lives our not our own"

Apr 22, 2013

Birthdays are not happy occasions at all

I’ve been feeling very low lately, because of my birthday
coming up. I love my birthday month, I plan trips on my birthday month, I plan
on having tattoos, or piercings, or losing weight, making career plans, and
remembering my last year of life that past. When it comes to the actual day it’s
different.

My family has been through something of an ordeal the last 5
years. Every time I try to be happy or try to forget the problems that my
family has had, they fall on me and I don’t get a chance to really be happy, or
to at least live a normal life. This year, I just had a small wish that the
series of problems that we've had for the past 5 years, maybe, just maybe were going to be solved before my birthday, so that I could maybe, be happy on my
birthday. My birthday will be in half an hour, and yet another year of my life
will begin with this huge cloud drowning me. And that is why I've been down, so
much down lately. My favorite book Three Comrades of Remarque starts with
Robert Lohkamp on his birthday, writing down all the birthdays he could
remember and where he was in them. I’d like to do that, even though I don’t
have horrific war stories.

2012 I was in Barcelona with my friend Kamela. I wanted to
escape the country, because I didn't want to celebrate it, I didn't want to
have any expectations on that day, especially because it was an anniversary, 25
years. Kamela and I went out before midnight and went to a place that served
tapas and beer so we had a cute time there. That day we went to a nice place in
the evening. It was nice to have my birthday in Barcelona, even though I missed
my family. But then my sister did a number on me. A few days after I came back
home, she had planned an impromptu birthday party for me and basically tried at
the last minute to invite whoever she could find, friends and acquaintances and
family. At first, this person who doesn't like being in the center of attention
was completely surprised, and not in a good way, but alcohol and the presence
of the karaoke machine, lowered the pressure and I had a good time. The funny
part was that I was supposed to go on a first date that day, which I had to
push. That whole thing went…well…another train wreck.

2011 I wanted to go out with my family, but my parents were
leaving town and they weren't exactly in a good mood. I went out with my sister
at the Japanese restaurant. My parents not being there and my overly depressive
dad’s face weighed on me all day.

2010 I spent my birthday at home with some people coming
over. I remember crying that day. I don’t know exactly why, but it must be
because nothing was as it was supposed to be.

2009 I was preparing myself for a career fair at school. I
did get a job because of that career fair, the worst job in the world that
humiliated me and crushed my self-confidence for a year and half. I was writing
resumes and preparing for the career fair and wasn’t in the mood to celebrate
at all. I just wanted to find a job as soon as possible so I could start
helping out at home, or at least stop weighing on them. I didn’t care what job I
was going to start, I just needed a job. I guess I had something like a family
dinner.

2008 I think I went out at Serendipity with family and my
friend Migena. It was the year before the robbery that took all of my family’s
money and other people’s money from us. It was before things were so fucked up
that I would want to quit school and would not even want to go out with friends
or date, or even be able to feel like a normal person who can socialize or
understand other people who didn’t have grave problems like my family did. But
that day I wasn’t very happy. My new boyfriend had forgotten my birthday and he
hadn’t called me or texted me or emailed me or anything. I forgave him, I’m an
idiot.

2007 My twentieth. Family at the Durrës house. I had my tatoo, I had a cute dress, I
had the nice cake with the candles and the lyrics of a song about being 20 in
my cake. I had a great time that day.

2006 Oh my, I
remember. I went out with my best friend Elda and my boyfriend of the time. I
don’t like remembering that relationship. I was so clueless towards my friend
and so awful breaking up with him later that year.

2005 18, that’s a good year. I’ve no clue how I celebrated
it. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I took some friends out for coffee at Real Skampini,
the coffee shop in the middle of the castle of the town, on a sunny day. I don’t
know if that was 2005 or 2004 No clue.

2003 Sweet 16. Big birthday party. My whole class, I think
that was the last time I had a big birthday party with just friends. It took me
two hours to get my hair done, my classmates were surprised I could actually
pull off a skirt, and I have no idea where the hell my camera went. It was a
nice little club. It was a great collection of music, and a lot of dancing. I
miss those days when we actually went to a club to dance, not to hump the table
while looking like whores. I think my best friends at the time were talking
about the party for the whole month until it happened.

2002 No idea

2001 I think I had a birthday party with my class at a place
near the house. We actually had fun.

The others before than that, I can’t really remember, I know
I did have a couple of birthday parties at our house with classmates, the big
Elbasan house that we sold. That was a good house. I used to be so thin. I have
no idea where photographs of these events are but they are imprinted in my
mind. I know that in one of those birthday parties a couple of Kosovar
classmates came at my party. It was the year the Albanian population doubled when
the war of Kosovo struck out. I heard about genocide for the first time as
something real, not from the history books. Before that I thought I lived in an
era where wars didn’t exist anymore. I used to have this stupid concept in my
mind that people of my era, of my generation were somehow evolved and didn’t
believe in wars or hate, or racism anymore. It took me a long time to realize
that there are homophobes, and racists, and wars in the world. That’s what
happens when you watch too much TV but no news. I was such a happy child.

As for today, Happy Birthday to me I guess. But that’s no
day more depressing than a birthday, to an adult. It’s a day that gives you so
much pressure and expectations, a day that is supposed to be about you, a day
that is supposed to be a celebration of your life. I didn’t go to a war like
Robert Lokamp and I did have some good birthdays, but that bastard met Patrice
Hollman, the love of his life later that day. What did he have to complain
about? Maybe if I liked Rum and I had a crazy
friend like Gotfried Lenz, I could actually try and celebrate the day of my
birth, but then again, I really feel like there’s not so much worth celebrating,
not this year. I’m alive, whoopdeedoo.